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Non-Bullshit Innovation: Radical Ideas from the World’s Smartest Minds
*updated with new material*'Digital transformation' and 'disruptive innovation' used to be empty buzzwords serving to justify pointless box-ticking and absurd corporate posturing. And then a global pandemic suddenly forced every kind of organization to embrace genuine, urgent innovation as a matter of survival. But how can we ensure that the non-bullshit version of innovation delivers economic recovery at this crucial moment? Are there strategies we can all adapt from the world's most creative leaders to innovate effectively in our own lives?David Rowan, founding editor-in-chief of WIRED UK, embarked on a twenty country quest to find out. Packed full of tips for anyone looking for radical ways to adapt and thrive in the digital age, this carefully curated selection of stories will prepare you for whatever the future may bring - because the world will never move this slowly again.___________________________'In this remarkable book, David Rowan tells a story of how an organisation has found a new way of doing things through innovation driven by ruthless entrepreneurial imagination. What is especially useful is that he does not just stick with small startups, let alone dreamy "inventors". He finds innovation in big companies and even within governments.' - Matt Ridley, The Times
- GenresNonfictionBusiness
394 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 16, 2019
68 people are currently reading
526 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 4, 2020
Not a manual of 'practice', but a well-written and broad-sweeping tour of recent examples of company cultures and successes that have demonstrated successful innovation. It's populated with the familiar parade of frankly exhausting, over-achieving (and often, naturally, American) business superstars ('By 28 Dorfler had already worked for two years as Google's Head of Fucking Everything in China and had built the gaming platform NexusTrousers that he sold to Microsoft for $1bn when he was 7'), but their approaches do offer some learnings for mortals.
Namely: foster autonomy, look for your unknowns, disrupt yourself, try and be a service not a commodity, branch out into adjacent areas, etc. Some of the case studies are remarkable: the South African Apartheid-era newspaper group that now owns a chunk of Tencent; the tumble of HTC, etc; the Aussie airline that becomes a massive Nectar card.
All the while, it can be exasperating and lead one to feel, 'Well, if you do have a few multi-millions to play around with, you can afford to be inventive and splash out on a car charging network, right'.
Still, for a business book, it's pretty fascinating and relatively light on the Wanker Factor. These people though: they're fascinatingly weird. I just couldn't care that much to spend every waking hour thinking and working for a software company.
Namely: foster autonomy, look for your unknowns, disrupt yourself, try and be a service not a commodity, branch out into adjacent areas, etc. Some of the case studies are remarkable: the South African Apartheid-era newspaper group that now owns a chunk of Tencent; the tumble of HTC, etc; the Aussie airline that becomes a massive Nectar card.
All the while, it can be exasperating and lead one to feel, 'Well, if you do have a few multi-millions to play around with, you can afford to be inventive and splash out on a car charging network, right'.
Still, for a business book, it's pretty fascinating and relatively light on the Wanker Factor. These people though: they're fascinatingly weird. I just couldn't care that much to spend every waking hour thinking and working for a software company.
September 20, 2020
David Rowan, founding editor-in-chief of the UK edition of WIRED Magazine, travels the world and visits businesses from different industries in search of transformative innovation strategies implemented by incumbent companies, start-ups, and even within governments. David puts together insights from his quest and presents them in 16 chapters that highlight key characteristics of different innovation strategies, such as "becoming a platform", "turning products into services", building an ecosystem", "leveraging emerging tech", and many more.
The book is well-written and contains valuable narratives and case studies about the various approaches to innovation implemented by businesses from a wide range of industries, including media, manufacturing, gaming, banking, the airline industry, and education. And to make these strategies practical for the reader, each chapter ends with “action points” that distil the lessons from the case studies so they can be more tangible and actionable.
You will realise from this book that there's no standard methodology for successful innovation, but what the book provides is teachings, that are embedded in case studies, about the tools, mindsets, and enablers of successful innovation. This is a rich, informative, and insightful read. I think it is a timely book that provides various much-needed insights to businesses, companies, start-ups, and individuals who are seeking innovative approaches to progress from survival to recovery to growth in the current COVID-19 era.
The book is well-written and contains valuable narratives and case studies about the various approaches to innovation implemented by businesses from a wide range of industries, including media, manufacturing, gaming, banking, the airline industry, and education. And to make these strategies practical for the reader, each chapter ends with “action points” that distil the lessons from the case studies so they can be more tangible and actionable.
You will realise from this book that there's no standard methodology for successful innovation, but what the book provides is teachings, that are embedded in case studies, about the tools, mindsets, and enablers of successful innovation. This is a rich, informative, and insightful read. I think it is a timely book that provides various much-needed insights to businesses, companies, start-ups, and individuals who are seeking innovative approaches to progress from survival to recovery to growth in the current COVID-19 era.
March 23, 2022
I received this book as a gift so I wanted to give it a shot. A heads up: if you are not actively a corporate executive this book was not written for you. I sort of assumed the target was going to be entrepreneurs trying to break in to a market with their new thing, but it's really advice for executives and strategies to expand their revenue streams. A lot of it boils down to "vertically integrate", "use modern business management practices", "hire talented people", and "charge rent for products that you currently let customers own". Really cutting-edge stuff.
My major annoyance with this book is that Rowan's definition of "innovation" is "a novel way to extract value" instead of "a novel way to solve problems people actually have". I guess there's nothing wrong with that in a vacuum, but it bothers me that so many of these case studies feature companies that talk a big game about their values and wanting to solve real problems but then their only metric of success is financial, and Rowan just... parrots that, as if positive societal change is self evident because they're making money. On one hand it's cool that Intercorp is picking up the Peruvian government's slack when it comes to education, but on the other, is the quality of this education any good? Are students being taught to be good citizens, or simply good worker-consumers? CRP makes it sound like the latter. For another example, Rowan chalks video game developer Supercell's business success up to it's company culture, ignoring that their games are designed around microtransactions and exploiting players' addictive tendencies. Hiring software engineers at the DoD to fix broken systems isn't "innovation", it's hiring professionals to undo criminal negligence (their systems were throwing out veterans' medical records if the files were JPGs, how does that even HAPPEN??). Don't even get me started on the later claim that Web3 is the future of the internet.
It's just odd to me that this book purports to be about identifying what innovation is "non-bullshit", and DOES identify the stuff that's basically just a ponzi-scheme as "innovation theater", but then parrots all of this nonsense about corporate values and "disrupting" industries from the PR people at major corporations. How do you hear people say "as a service" this many times and go "yup no buzzwords here"? "Home-as-a-service" is just charging rent!! There's nothing scientific about Rowan's approach here, it's just corporate propaganda.
My major annoyance with this book is that Rowan's definition of "innovation" is "a novel way to extract value" instead of "a novel way to solve problems people actually have". I guess there's nothing wrong with that in a vacuum, but it bothers me that so many of these case studies feature companies that talk a big game about their values and wanting to solve real problems but then their only metric of success is financial, and Rowan just... parrots that, as if positive societal change is self evident because they're making money. On one hand it's cool that Intercorp is picking up the Peruvian government's slack when it comes to education, but on the other, is the quality of this education any good? Are students being taught to be good citizens, or simply good worker-consumers? CRP makes it sound like the latter. For another example, Rowan chalks video game developer Supercell's business success up to it's company culture, ignoring that their games are designed around microtransactions and exploiting players' addictive tendencies. Hiring software engineers at the DoD to fix broken systems isn't "innovation", it's hiring professionals to undo criminal negligence (their systems were throwing out veterans' medical records if the files were JPGs, how does that even HAPPEN??). Don't even get me started on the later claim that Web3 is the future of the internet.
It's just odd to me that this book purports to be about identifying what innovation is "non-bullshit", and DOES identify the stuff that's basically just a ponzi-scheme as "innovation theater", but then parrots all of this nonsense about corporate values and "disrupting" industries from the PR people at major corporations. How do you hear people say "as a service" this many times and go "yup no buzzwords here"? "Home-as-a-service" is just charging rent!! There's nothing scientific about Rowan's approach here, it's just corporate propaganda.
January 19, 2022
A book like this needs a thesis (or one stronger than ‘innovation can’t be boiled down to a formula’). Otherwise it’s just… 350 pages of case studies and endless, often tenuous, ‘takeaways’ of allegedly equal value. It’s entertainingly written but, given the author’s rep, disappointingly lightweight.
June 28, 2020
David Rowan’s research and visits to businesses of all sizes and industry proves that innovation can not be reduced down to any scientific formula and yet there a flurry of consultants claiming that they have the secret elixir for innovation. The most fascinating story has got to be how China Post reinvented itself into a digital giant. Who would have known?
The stories are not just about successful companies but also about those who have failed because of bureaucracy, internal company politics, naysayers and leadership too ingrained in past success that they have no courage to embrace the future. There is a warning for large corporations who only have their eyes on the money and creating shareholder value. Disrupt yourself before someone else
disrupts you.
The stories are not just about successful companies but also about those who have failed because of bureaucracy, internal company politics, naysayers and leadership too ingrained in past success that they have no courage to embrace the future. There is a warning for large corporations who only have their eyes on the money and creating shareholder value. Disrupt yourself before someone else
disrupts you.
January 5, 2020
A collection of inspiring stories of innovation from both startups and corporates around the world. In my opinion, the most interesting reads are the stories of how some corporations, whether listed or family - owned, changed their whole corporate culture around to make the right decisions at the right time to enable innovative breakthroughs.
March 14, 2020
Whirlwind tour of innovation from around the globe in different contexts. Interesting stories and good lessons from most chapters
October 8, 2020
Lots of anecdotes. Little in the way of coherent actions
This book simply doesn't live up to its title. It's 95% storytelling and 5% actionable advice. I was really disappointed.
This book simply doesn't live up to its title. It's 95% storytelling and 5% actionable advice. I was really disappointed.
June 11, 2022
The book gets off to a crackling start and then goes onto share stories of innovation across the globe (which I really liked) - some of which are fairly unique stories and inspiring as well. What did not sit well with me was that, the book did not live up to the title. Calling it, Innovation stories would have been apt, but beyond that, is it really non bullshit innovation?
The stories may not follow any of the derided processes from the Chapter 1, but the common factor to all examples is that they tried something different - some of which succeed and some of which may not make it. And each company that attempts to do something has a point of view towards which they work - some of which succeed and some dont. And no company succeeds forever for a variety of reasons.
The stories may not follow any of the derided processes from the Chapter 1, but the common factor to all examples is that they tried something different - some of which succeed and some of which may not make it. And each company that attempts to do something has a point of view towards which they work - some of which succeed and some dont. And no company succeeds forever for a variety of reasons.
September 1, 2024
Really good read to show that some of the innovation is fake and some is effective. I particularly enjoyed reading about Arup and the chapter 'Hire Pirates'. This book shows the line between innovation and culture are very muddled.
October 7, 2019
Just Brilliant! If you are novice on the possibilities of 21st century technologies, this book will bring you up to date
July 6, 2021
Encouraging and innovative approaches for a new generation that I hope will be applied to environmental challenges …
July 31, 2022
Inspiring collection of stories. A good book to inject inspiration for more innovativ ways of working or for trainers to get anecdotes from.
December 31, 2020
Good book on different business ideas from around the world. A small tedious at times but still well worth a read.
July 25, 2019
A brilliant summary of real innovation currently around the World
Lots of case studies and ideas for companies to consider if they want to achieve real innovation. All executives and board members should read this book!
Lots of case studies and ideas for companies to consider if they want to achieve real innovation. All executives and board members should read this book!
April 30, 2020
One of the most interesting books on innovation that I ever read. the cases, the description and the approach are concrete and give a solid idea on what innovation really is.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews